A Killing Gift

'Yes, sir,' he responded when his boss gave him a look.

Chief Avise was nursing a diet Coke and brooding about old times. 'Back in the day' was always a big topic of conversation at retirement parties. And this was their third retirement party in ten days. March and April were bad months this year. It seemed as if good people like Bernardino were throwing in the towel every day. Even before 9/11, things had been bad. Experienced bosses with more than twenty years in had been falling away like hair on a cancer patient. Bye-bye to grubby precincts, bad guys, frustrations of the job. Bye-bye to risking their lives in the toughest neighborhoods.

The accrued overtime of 9/11 and the huge shakeup of a new mayor after eight years of triumphs in law enforcement with the last one brought about even greater upheaval and defections. The Department was still reeling from its losses. The new commissioner brought in retired CIA terrorist experts to reinvent security in New York. And comers in the middle ranks, like Mike and April, were moving up to fill the gaps.

Mike had done well on his captain's test-the last test for promotion he'd ever have to endure. Henceforth all promotions would be discretionary. For him job openings were coming up. Any day he would receive the promotion and change of command that would put him back in uniform as commanding officer of a precinct, or head of a special unit, and bring him up the next step in the ladder of his career. He was not thinking of the old days. He was thinking of the new ones to come.

'Chief, we've got a problem.' Sergeant Becker's face was white. He didn't shout across the room. He'd come inside the restaurant, passed the people sitting and standing at the bar, and now spoke softly into the chief's ear.

Avise tilted his head slightly to listen. His face didn't change. Only the tone of his voice. 'Jesus,' he muttered.

Mike waited silently for his cue. Avise gave it to him. 'Shit. Bernie's dead,' he said softly.

'Heart attack?' he asked Becker. It wouldn't be the first time a warhorse died the minute the pressure was off. But the COD didn't matter. Avise was moving his heavy body before the answer was out, and Mike was right behind him.

Mike might have been finished for the night, full of food and thoughts of love with his novia later on, and far from thinking of disaster. But a cop was never really off duty. Tragedy always got sluggish blood going. He and Chief Avise joined the brass in suits hurrying down the block to the place where a clot of partygoers had instantly formed around the fallen man. Circling them, uniforms were already organizing with the efficiency that made it plain that Lieutenant Alfredo Bernardino was no more.

This was the moment when lightness usually broke the tension among cops. Corpses of former human beings always elicited inappropriate remarks because no one ever wanted to give in to emotion and weep. Tonight, however, no jokes were forthcoming. Aware of the chief's arrival, the recent revelers parted silently for Avise. One quick glance at Bernardino's body told him the one thing he didn't want to know.

'Aw, shit. What the hell happened here?' he muttered angrily.

Fog blunted everything but his voice. He was already barking out orders to people who didn't know any more than he did.

'What do we got here? You got any witnesses? Close this street now. Get every name. Everybody!' Avise shook himself and backed away, rattling off the to-do list as Mike took his place near the body.

'It's a homicide. Mike, you're it,' he said, pointing his finger.

'Sorry, sir.' Somebody shoved Mike from behind, inadvertently offering him an even better view of Bernardino's staring eyes and twisted neck.

Oh, no. Mike took the punch and groaned without sound. Violent ends always told the most pathetic stories. Bernardino's eyes in his startled face made him look as if he'd been caught in some embarrassing faux pas. A bad finish for a tough and loyal soldier. Poor Bernardino. Poor guy.

'Mike, you're it.' Avise's words hit like a hammer in his head. Mike's promotion to captain was imminent. His days of test taking were over. No more hands-on homicide. No more knocking on doors to find out what made victims magnets and who were the killers.

But now he was tagged and It again. He had to find out who wanted Bernardino dead only days after his tenure in the Department was over. Jesus. Why Bernardino? Why now? What had been his last case? What had he been into? Who might be out on the streets that he'd put in the slammer five years ago? Ten? What was the story? Shit. Already the questions were roiling around in Mike's head. The last thing he needed.

A quartet of sirens were howling now. Blue-and-whites coming, an ambulance. He snapped to, thinking he had to find April and get organized. As he stepped aside, the toe of his cowboy boot caught the hard edge of the plaque that applauded Bernardino's thirty-eight years of service. His first thought was that April had been first on the scene and must have sounded the alarm. Bad luck for her. Bernie had been her old boss, her rabbi before she'd moved out of Chinatown. He wanted to push the weather away so he could see her, go to her side. He began searching the crowd for the familiar figure in the pretty dress.

'Anybody seen Sergeant Woo?'

Poppy Bellaqua touched his arm. 'What happened?' she breathed into his ear.

'Some bastard broke Benardino's neck,' he said tersely.

'Jesus!'

'Where's April?' His voice sharpened as he scanned the crowd and didn't see her. His second thought was that she might have been on the scene when it went down.

'She followed Bernie out,' Bellaqua told him. 'She must be here.'

Mike knew she wasn't there and was rattled. He couldn't hear her voice, couldn't see her through the smoke, couldn't smell her or feel her presence. He felt the panic rising. He was a cop, but it didn't mean he didn't get scared. At the best of times he didn't like having April out of his sight. Times like this he was no better than her crazy mother, who wished she'd do practically anything else for a living.

'Mike, you okay?'

'April may have seen Bernie's killer.' It hurt to spit the words out, but he had to move. April had gotten too close to a fresh kill. Way too close. She might have tried to prevent it. In any case it wasn't like her to leave a scene. Anxiety crawled all over him as screams broke out in Washington Square. He and Poppy locked eyes, then started running.

Four

You did a good job. Don't move. An ambulance is on the way.'

Jack Devereaux heard the command and obeyed. Frankly, he couldn't have gotten up if he tried. His whole right side was a fireworks of pain. He couldn't feel his feet and couldn't lift his right arm at all. Not even the hand. He knew without even seeing that particular hand that he'd need a cast. This was a disaster for a person who lived his life by computer. But that was the least of tonight's disaster. His body was on hold, but his brain kept going without it, bumping along over relevant and irrelevant subjects like a jeep on a dirt road.

'Is she all right?' he croaked out. He was pinned to the ground and no one would give him an answer.

People were screaming. Sirens were going. And there might be a dead person a few feet away from him. He couldn't tell when he'd tried CPR on her whether it had worked or not. He'd been pulled away too fast, and now no one would tell him if the girl was dead. If she was dead, he'd never forgive himself for not moving fast enough, for not making enough noise. Sheba seemed to think she'd done something wrong. She was on her belly, trying to crawl closer to him. Whining deep in her throat. Sorry, sorry, sorry, boss. Please forgive me.

'It's okay, baby.' He tried to reassure her that she was a hero, she'd done right, but the words came out more like a moan.

Pain cut through his body, and anxiety cut even deeper. He'd failed again in the saving department. Then his thoughts switched over to smells. He couldn't help being aware of odors. When he was happy, when he was sad, when he was making love to Lisa they could distract him. During disasters especially, his emotions could easily be